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Week 10 DVOA Ratings

by Aaron Schatz

Another big victory helps the Los Angeles Rams increase their lead on top of the Football Outsiders DVOA ratings this week. The Rams move up to the No. 1 spot in defense this week, making them our top team for both defense and special teams. They are now our Super Bowl favorite, winning it in one out of every six simulations (16.7 percent). The Saints move into the No. 2 spot after their huge 47-10 win over Buffalo, replacing the Pittsburgh Steelers, who drop to No. 4 after barely beating Indianapolis. Philadelphia remains at No. 3 after a bye week.

The top of the DVOA ratings shows a very strong dichotomy between the two conferences this season. The NFC has the top three teams and four of the top five. If we go deeper, the NFC has nine of the top 13 teams. If we look at weighted DVOA, it's eight of the top 11 teams, since Kansas City is eighth in full-season DVOA but drops to 12th in weighted DVOA. Of course, you don't need DVOA to know how imbalanced the conferences are this year. There are ten teams with winning records in the NFC and only six teams with winning records in the AFC.

As far as those AFC teams, this was a big week for the New England Patriots, who finally moved into the top ten where conventional wisdom says they belong. Their offense is now over 30%, the special teams have risen to fifth in the league, and the defense moves up another spot to No. 30! The Patriots had one of their better defensive games this week, but let's be honest, holding down Brock Osweiler when his team is constantly blowing field position with special teams flubs is not too difficult.

Of course, it was only two weeks ago that we actually had Buffalo higher than the Patriots in DVOA. At that point, Buffalo was tenth and the Patriots were 13th. After they got run over by the Saints, Buffalo is now 21st with the Patriots up to seventh.

It seems like we do this every year with these two teams. I went back and looked, and while it isn't a regular occurance every single year, there really is a strong trend for the Patriots to get better later in the season while the Bills tend to start strong and then fall apart. I'm not sure why this trend should exist over the last few years, when Buffalo has had multiple front office setups and multiple head coaches, but it does.

I picked Week 6 as the week to measure since that was when this year's Bills had their bye week. Check out the trends for these two teams. First, here's Buffalo, which has seen its DVOA drop after Week 6 in four of the last six seasons. This year probably will make it five of seven.

Buffalo Bills DVOA, Week 6 vs. Final, 2011-2016

After Week 6

End of Season

Year

W-L

DVOA

Rank

W-L

DVOA

Rank

2011

4-2

19.2%

4

6-10

-9.7%

23

2012

3-3

-21.0%

27

6-10

-12.1%

23

2013

2-4

4.2%

14

6-10

-3.3%

18

2014

3-3

0.2%

18

9-7

10.5%

9

2015

3-3

13.4%

8

8-8

2.7%

12

2016

4-2

22.6%

3

7-9

1.0%

17

AVG

--

6.4%

12.3

--

-1.8%

17.0

Now, here are the Patriots, who have seen their DVOA rise after Week 6 every year in the past six except for 2015.

New England Patriots DVOA, Week 6 vs. Final, 2011-2016

After Week 6

End of Season

Year

W-L

DVOA

Rank

W-L

DVOA

Rank

2011

5-1

18.0%

6

13-3

22.8%

3

2012

3-3

25.1%

6

12-4

34.9%

3

2013

5-1

8.8%

13

12-4

18.9%

5

2014

4-2

9.4%

11

12-4

22.1%

4

2015

5-0

44.4%

2

12-4

22.6%

6

2016

5-1

13.5%

7

14-2

24.9%

1

AVG

--

19.9%

7.5

--

24.4%

3.7

I went and ran this same set of numbers for every team, looking at the last six seasons. Yes, that's a totally arbitary set of years, but for the moment, we're just having fun with this.

Buffalo had the highest average change in DVOA rank when we compare Week 6 to final DVOA from 2011-2016. The New York Jets also had a strong pattern of late-season decline, especially since you can't go any lower than 32nd:

New York Jets DVOA, Week 6 vs. Final, 2011-2016

After Week 6

End of Season

Year

W-L

DVOA

Rank

W-L

DVOA

Rank

2011

3-3

18.6%

5

8-8

13.5%

10

2012

3-3

-2.4%

17

6-10

-18.0%

27

2013

3-3

-2.7%

18

8-8

-7.7%

24

2014

1-5

-21.0%

28

4-12

-15.5%

27

2015

4-1

26.9%

5

10-6

12.4%

9

2016

1-5

-36.1%

32

5-11

-32.4%

32

AVG

--

-2.8%

17.5

--

-7.9%

21.5

Atlanta also had a strong decline trend for second halves, but that's essentially just a three-year trend from their three years in the postseason wilderness from 2013 to 2015. Last year, the Falcons were sixth in DVOA after Week 6 but ended the year third. The Packers have a high average drop, but that's pretty much all from the year Aaron Rodgers got injured at midseason. (After this year, that "trend" will be even worse.)

On the other side, one team more than any other team -- including the Patriots -- has a strong recent history of improving in the second half of the season. Some of this was early-season suspensions or injuries to the quarterback, of course. This team has dropped in the DVOA ratings since Week 6 of this season, but they also get to play five of their final seven games at home this year. Hello, Pittsburgh Steelers.

Pittsburgh Steelers DVOA, Week 6 vs. Final, 2011-2016

After Week 6

End of Season

Year

W-L

DVOA

Rank

W-L

DVOA

Rank

2011

4-2

9.8%

10

12-4

22.6%

4

2012

2-3

-10.4%

21

8-8

-1.2%

18

2013

1-4

-6.2%

21

8-8

0.9%

15

2014

3-3

-1.5%

20

11-5

12.1%

8

2015

4-2

20.9%

6

10-6

21.3%

7

2016

4-2

8.3%

12

11-5

17.1%

4

AVG

--

3.5%

15.0

--

12.1%

9.3

Other teams with a similar trend include Carolina (except it is mostly 2011 and 2012, hooray for my arbitary endpoints) and Houston (which is not happening this year).

Of course, the proper way to look at this would be to look at it without arbitary endpoints, concentrating instead on teams that have had consistency at the head coach position. That's a project for another time, but I looked at a few well-tenured head coaches quickly.

In 11 of 17 seasons since Bill Belichick took over, New England has ended the season with a higher DVOA than it had after Week 6. If we include this season, it will be eight out of the last ten. 2009 and 2015 are the exceptions.

I took Andy Reid all the way back to the start of his time with the Eagles. From 1999 to 2012, the Eagles had a lower DVOA at the end of the season compared to Week 6 in nine out of 14 seasons. One season was basically the same. Only four seasons saw DVOA go up, and only two seasons by more than 3.0%: 2003 (from -3.9% to 19.6%) and 2011 (from 1.8% to 13.5%). However, the Chiefs have increased their DVOA in the second half of the season in three of Reid's four years there.

The Marvin Lewis Bengals have ended the season with a higher DVOA compared to Week 6 in eight out of 14 seasons, plus two of the six declines were really tiny. However, the Bengals have only gotten better in the second half twice in the last six seasons (2012 and 2016).

The Sean Payton Saints don't have a strong trend: four seasons they got better, four seasons they got worse, two were about the same, and one Payton was suspended.

Results for John Harbaugh's Ravens are also mixed: four seasons up, four seasons down, one about the same.

The only clear trend for Mike McCarthy whether we look at six years or all 11 years: "Aaron Rodgers getting injured is bad."

In Mike Tomlin's first season with Pittsburgh, the Steelers ranked fourth with 33.6% DVOA after Week 6 but were sixth at 19.4% DVOA by the end of the season. In every season since then, nine straight seasons from 2008 to 2016, Pittsburgh's DVOA has been higher at the end of the season than it was after Week 6.

* * * * *

Once again this season, we have teamed up with EA Sports to bring Football Outsiders-branded player content to Madden 18. This year, our content for Madden Ultimate Team on consoles comes monthly, while our content for Madden Mobile comes weekly. Come back to each Tuesday's DVOA commentary article for a list of players who stood out during the previous weekend's games. Those players will get special Madden Mobile items branded as "Powerline, powered by Football Outsiders," beginning at 11am Eastern on Friday.

These are the Football Outsiders team efficiency ratings through 10 weeks of 2017, measured by our proprietary Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) system that breaks down every single play and compares a team's performance to the league average based on situation in order to determine value over average. (Explained further here.)

OFFENSE and DEFENSE DVOA are adjusted to consider all fumbles, kept or lost, as equal value. SPECIAL TEAMS DVOA is adjusted for type of stadium (warm, cold, dome, Denver) and week of season. As of this week, all opponent adjustments are at full strength.

WEIGHTED DVOA represents an attempt to figure out how a team is playing right now, as opposed to over the season as a whole, by making recent games more important than earlier games.

To save people some time, please use the following format for all complaints:

NON-ADJUSTED TOTAL DVOA does not include the adjustments for opponent strength or the adjustments for weather and altitude in special teams, and only penalizes offenses for lost fumbles rather than all fumbles.

ESTIMATED WINSuses a statistic known as "Forest Index" that emphasizes consistency as well as DVOA in the most important specific situations: red zone defense, first quarter offense, and performance in the second half when the score is close. It then projects a number of wins adjusted to a league-average schedule and a league-average rate of recovering fumbles. Teams that have had their bye week are projected as if they had played one game per week.

PAST SCHEDULE lists average DVOA of opponents played this season, ranked from hardest schedule (#1, most positive) to easiest schedule (#32, most negative). It is not adjusted for which games are home or road.

FUTURE SCHEDULE lists average DVOA of opponents still left to play this season, ranked from hardest schedule (#1, most positive) to easiest schedule (#32, most negative). It is not adjusted for which games are home or road.

On defense the Pack are 30th in drive success rate while ranking 19th in DVOA. If I'm understanding these stats correctly it would match my perception that the best thing they have been doing is forcing opponents to at least convert some third and fourth downs as they march down the field.

On one hand, maybe that means they're due for some sort of correction in their overall defensive performance if they can stop more 3rd downs. On the other hand, it looks like they also lead the league in fumbles recovered per drive, so that would likely lead to correction back the other way...

Rams defense is going to get even better, I think. The Vikings will have a very hard time beating them in Minneapolis, and what chance they have rests on the Vikings defense obtaining benefit from HFA to force Goff into some turnovers. If The Keeser is forced to try to throw the Vikings into catching up, because the Rams score significant 1st half points, it'll get ugly. 16-13 is the Vikings best chance.

Denver is clearly ranked too low, having faith in your team no matter what is way better than this! They only signed Brockweiler as a test to see if their HC was dumb enough to actually play him. Obviously he'll be fired after the season, right?

The BES is showing the same gap in conferences as DVOA with seven of the BES Top-10 hailing from the NFC. That includes four of the top-5 with the Saints ranked No. 1 for a fourth consecutive week.

I see the Saints are closing on the Rams in Weighted DVOA. It's the opposite in the BES where the Rams are making a strong push up the rankings. Actually Weighted DVOA and the BES agree on quite a few teams, especially the Chiefs at No. 12.

And how about the Chargers? They're easily the highest ranked three-win team in the BES at No. 14. I see they're not far off in DVOA/Weighted DVOA at No. 18 but certainly a better 3-win team at this point than the Texans who've fallen to No. 22 in the BES.

If he gets starter money, I'm sending my GM resume out to 32 teams. How a supposed professional football talent evaluator could not see how favorable an environment he has worked in thus far (schedule gets a lot harder now, so who knows what happens for the next 7 weeks), and how he simply doesn't throw the ball well enough, is beyond my understanding.

You could have given that advice pre-draft to San Diego in 2004 (all things considered, it was good advice). I don't know why you dislike your QB so much given that your favorite site has him ranked #4 in the league and your favorite team is in first place. Record setting, short, high-volume college spread QBs can never take a few years to adjust to the NFL, can they?

I mean, I sometimes yell at Brees when things aren't looking good. And sometimes he doesn't throw receivers open or throws right to a LB. He doesn't always get the distance right on long throws. And once he's forced out of the pocket, good things rarely happen. But then I remember he is first ballot HOF and his name isn't Billy Joe fill in the blank.

FO will be the first ones to inform us that what they have ranked #4 is Keenum throwing to the Vikings receivers, behind the Vikings offensive line, both of which have been wonderful this year. Keenum is a terrific back up, who does not throw the ball especially well (the comparison with Brees is problematic), which means his margin for error is very,very, thin. That's been ok so far this year, because they have dominated opponents pretty well. This last game against the Redskins was a good example, with the Vikings o-line controlling the game throughout. Ya'just can't count on that.

Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best
And always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the light side of life

Hey, I really don't care all that much who wins these games, and decided quite a while ago that the game is more enjoyable that way. If The Keeser ends up being John Unitas,Joe Montana, and Peyton Manning, rolled into one, that'll be damned entertaining.

One of the underappreciated aspects of the early Carroll/Schneider era is how firm they were in the belief "cheap, mediocre players are out there, if we can just find them", then went all in on the belief and went through epic levels of roster churn, turning over every rock in the forest.

It had almost no impact on the team's record, since they weren't finding stars, but every guy they brought in was a little cheaper or a little better than the guy he replaced, so either the cap situation or the talent pool got better each time.

I strongly believe that coaches who overpay for mediocrity either (1) overestimate their own X's and O's genius, or (2) don't have confidence in their own ability to evaluate talent.

I mean, it's a truism that the talent is out there. Just look back at the end of each season and tally up - across the league - how many waiver claims, street free agents, mid-season releases, veteran minimum signings, and low-round trade targets ended up contributing to their final destination teams.

It would take balls of steel to even try convincing a GM to go along with it - and maybe it would require a similarly-balled GM - but I have to believe that what Carroll and Schneider did is repeatable. That you can actually build the skeleton of a cheap, mediocre, team if you trust the process, trust your evaluation, and really buy in to it.

Of course, if you fail, you're going to burn for it - but wouldn't you rather go down that way than signing Mike Glennon to an over-value contract?

Jones and Sanu always just kind of seemed like "guys" in the Cincinnati offense to me. But now they seem to be important pieces to their new teams. That leads me to believe that they were probably much more important to Cincinnati than I had realized.

Weird that Thielen has 3 fumbles while no other wide receiver in the NFL appears to have more than one. Doubt it explains the difference between having an average DVOA vs. top 10 or so, but wonder just how big of an impact those fumbles have.

Thanks very much Vince! Looks like he'll be in the top 10 in WR DYAR this week either way, but that those fumbles give enough of a hit that, without them, he may have already ranked closer to 10-15th rather than 27th last week.

That makes things a little closer to the eye test. But still seems low for just how well Thielen has played. He wins so many contested balls on not great throws by Keenum, and when Keenum hits him on deep balls he's usually 5 yards open at least.

I don't see enough Vikes games to be sure but when a guy with ordinary speed is able to gain this type of separation that is often because of incredible hip change/shift fluidity. Antonio Freeman had that before he got hurt/gained weight. Same with Jordy Nelson before his injury. They manage to get dbs legs crossed/stop-started wihtout having to downshift themselves and then the db is playing panicked catch up.

It's really something because the aspect is so subtle the viewer is left wondering WTF just happened

Jordy and Thielen both ran 4.5 40s. Basically the same as guys like Antonio Brown and AJ Green. They’re not DeSean Jackson or Tedd Ginn, but they aren’t exactly working on a speed deficit compared to other elite receivers.

Watching Diggs and Thielen makes me think of how many receivers get drafted in the 1st round, despite never demonstrating that they are really good at catching any ball they can get their hands on. To me, that's where it begins, and if a guy doesn't show that in college, you can't consider him for the 1st round, or maybe even the 2nd. The test can't end there, of course; I'm pretty sure that the Treadwell mistake happened because they fell in love with his catch radius, and ignored everything else. If guy is not a ball hawk in college, however, you should not be drafting him high, no matter how fast he is, or how impressive a physical specimen he is.

Treadwell averaged less than 12 yards/catch in college, which alone should have been enough of a red flag to avoid him. Isn't that one of FO's standard pre-draft WR evaluations? Guys who are possession receivers in college have a lower success rate than "speed" guys, because it's just harder to get open in the pros against better competition?

Yeah, like I said, I think they just fell in love with his catch radius, and ignored everything else. I think Spielman's been pretty decent (with some bad injury luck among his higher picks since he obtained complete draft authority after The Ponderous Fiasco), but that was his complete whiff in the 1st round. Even Patterson was an ok late 1st rounder, due to his extraordinary special teams value.

1st fumble was at Pitt with minute to go down 17. Recovered by Pitt
2nd was against Det - 1.44 to go down 7, near mid field, Recovered by Det
3rd was against 14min to go in quarter, at own 35, up 4, fumbled out of bounds

I remember the first two, can't honestly remember the 3rd. The first was in garbage time, the 2nd was very costly. Can't honestly remember the 3rd, but it could obviously been costly.

Their passing is still last by 20% - !! - despite signs of life from Kizer this past week. The #6 rushing DVOA ranking confirms the question everyone had earlier this year as to why Hue didn't lean on the run more.

Is there any scenario short of massive improvement where Hue Jackson doesn't get fired?

I feel bad for him in a way because this roster gave him no chance, but you'd still expect them to be better than this right? Back to back potential 0-16 seasons is a herculean feat, even for the Browns. Or maybe not. The browns keep resetting expectations.

I watched the Browns last week, and in parts of other games (vs Texans with Watson, and vs Vikings). My impression of them is that they are a team that has talent (I think the hoarding draft picks strategy is working somewhat), but they are very sloppy, and continuously self-immolate with unforced mistakes. To me, that falls on coaching. I was never impressed with Hue Jackson when he was with the Raiders (they should have easily won that division in 2011). I don't think he's going to be the head coach of the next good Browns team (whenever that is).

Yeah of the coaches "hired" by Randy Lerner and Haslam, the best case career path has been back to being a respected coordinator (Crennel and Shurmur). It's hard to see any of Mangini, Chudzinski, or Pettine returning.

Chud is the current offensive coordinator for Indy, and Mangini managed to climb back to defensive coordinator after the Browns, albeit for the dysfunctional Jim Tomsula 49ers. Mike Pettine is the only Browns head coach of the Randy Lerner-Jimmy Haslam era who hasn't been able to work his way back to a coordinator job. The last one before Pettine to not make it back to NFL coordinator was Butch Davis, an Al Lerner hire, who slunk back to college after he was fired during the 2004 season.

Pats look like the clear class of the AFC, go figure, and if they get home-field, they'll be tough to beat (although it at least looks like the AFC will have five non-pushovers in the playoffs this year, so they won't get a Brock Osweiler in the divisional round second bye, barring a repeat of late-season injuries like what felled Derek Carr and Mariota last year). NFC looks wide-open, with legit strong teams atop every division, and more good teams than playoff spots. I've thought the NFC has been better since 2012, but I'd never count Tom Brady or Bill Belicheck out (sorta felt they stole both recent titles from superior NFC teams, but that's the story of their lives, and they probably shoulda won in 2007 and 2011, too)

I expect the division winners to be the Pats, Steelers, Chiefs, and Jaguars. No clue about the wild card, but I don't see where it matters, as the drop-off is pretty steep after that. Who is the fifth non-pushover? Tennessee? Who needed OT to beat the Browns? They're on a 4-game winning streak against teams with a combined 10-27 record.

The Bills' resume has nosedived the past two weeks. I would believe in the Texans if they hadn't lost so many of their top players to injuries already.

The Titans are the fifth decent team in my eyes- Mariota's been playing hurt, and, when he was healthy, they crushed the Jags and Seahawks in back-to-back weeks. They struggled against the Browns, but they won. Good teams have to pull ones out on off days from time to time, and they did. Guess we'll have a better idea how they stack up Thursday

I'm not that impressed with the Titans. They played poorly against a mediocre Raiders team at home. They also nearly lost to the crappy Colts at home and have looked listless in several of their other games. Mariotta is starting to look a lot like a solid but unspectacular qb which is probably a disappointment given how high he was drafted.

"sorta felt they stole both recent titles from superior NFC teams". I buy this argument for the 2014 seahawks, who probably win that superbowl if they don't suffer a rash of injuries in the middle of the game. But the Pats were easily better and more balanced than Atlanta - who was all offense and no defense.

I don't see who the Patriots should fear right now in the AFC. Outside of Pittsburgh, their other opponents are either badly imbalanced(Jags, Chiefs), or thoroughly mediocre(Titans, whoever the 6th seed is). If Pittsburgh has to (gulp) go to Ne, its a walkover. Even at home, I don't like Pittsburgh's chances. I don't trust the Steeler D, nor do I trust their offense or even their coaching.

I don't see how this isn't a cakewalk to the Superbowl for the Patriots. In fact, I'll call it now. The pats will face some opponent from the NFC that looks scary. That team will at some point have a lead or be tied and then the coaches will overthink themselves and the team will meltdown in some diabolically pathetic way. Pats win their 6th superbowl, Brady and Belichick get carved onto Mount Rushmore and the rest of the offseason is spent re-printing articles from 2004.

Jacksonville, Kansas City, and New England look, to me, like the best of the AFC (not sure what DVOA is seeing in Pittsburgh), and they face the 30th-32nd hardest schedules the rest of the way (and HFA figures to be really important this year). Guess it'll come down to who takes care of business

Jacksonville might actually have a tough matchup against..the Browns. Yes, the Browns. The Browns defense should be able to stifle the Jax offense. Will probably come down to running game, and turnovers. Teams have adjusted to KC's offensive wrinkles, and their defense is waning. Pittsburgh defense will have to do something to NE offense they've never done to have a chance, else, who's even going to challenge NE at this point? (like who in the entire AFC?)

Jags have the 12th best offense (better than Seattle or Washington). Not sure the Browns have what it takes to "stifle" them (and they've gotten nothing from Fournette since the Rams game, when it looked like he hurt his leg before sitting unexpectedly for three weeks). Jags have more blowouts than anyone else in the AFC. They've also scored on defense about every other game (and got to the 1-yard line against San Diego, and had another touchdown taken away on a phantom 'down-by-contact' call that appears to have been incorrect). They've given up 55 rushing yards a game since they picked up Dareus, and they've crushed quarterbacks that don't have lightening quick releases. I'm actually more scared of Blaine Gabbert and Arizona (Bruce Arians is the first competent coach he's had, they won't have tape on him, and he looked good in preseason). Their achilles heel so far has been shitty special teams, but I guess we'll see (one of us will be really wrong). My only concern is that they've been screwed by refs repeatedly (the phantom down-by-contact, last week the Bengals were given a touchdown on a play that was clearly down on the one, and there was another play like that a few weeks ago). They've played an above average schedule, and have given up 9 points or less five times already (I'll be shocked if the Browns score more than 14 points)

Recipe versus Jags looks clear - what LACH did (but then don't blow it at the end). Take away the run with numbers in the box and put it on Bortles. If he's good enough then fair enough (but he's not).

Doubtful the Browns can actually manage this, but it's got to be the plan.

Call it 'blow it' if you like, but the Jags defense forced that fumble (which should have been called a touchdown, negating at least one of the Bortles picks), forced the three-and-out to get the ball back, and then got the pick on the Chargers first OT drive. They've also played the toughest schedule of defenses, so far, according to dvoa

Have we already forgotten the Tom Coughlin Giants days? Coughlin Justice strikes hard and it strikes fast, like the god of the old testament. Fournette probably wore the wrong color socks to practice or something.

DVOA sees in Pittsburgh their dismantling of the Chiefs, which wasn't as close as the final score.

The Steelers are almost certainly going to win at least 12 games. They only have two more road games, @Cincy and @Houston. Houston is dead in the water. Their home games include the Pats, but aside from that they get the Packers w/o Rodgers, the Titans, the Browns and Ravens. If they can beat the Pats, they pretty much have a lock on the #1 seed, given their previous win over KC.

The Steelers can play as well as anybody. It's just that a lot of the time they don't.

The fact they have 5 home games left is huge. If they can beat NE, their path to a #1 seed is quite clear given they'll have wins over both KC and NE (assuming say jacksonville doesn't run the table or something crazy).

They basically have to avoid playing NE at all costs. I have no faith in them even competing in that game. They've historically played NE a lot better in Pittsburgh (though still losing more often than not).

Every top AFC contender has a relatively easy schedule left. In many ways seeding will come down to head-to-head. That NE @ PIT game probably decides the #1 seed unless KC wins out.

Jacksonville winning out wouldn't be impossible. They have the 2nd-easiest remaining schedule. They may be favored in all of their remaining games. The biggest concerns are Blake Bortles' inconsistency, and being a newly good team.

New England has also just started a 5-road-games-in-6-games stretch (though Mexico City shouldn't count, and the Raiders really got boned on that one), and if they go 4-2 or better, they'll have a great shot at the 1 seed

Any team that has a "home" game abroad has taken that loss of a real home game willingly. Apparently this is part of the price a franchise pays when they are changing cities. This applies to the Rams, Chargers, and Raiders. My understanding is that the Raiders are popular in Mexico. Shahid Khan has other sporting interests in England and appears to not mind having the Jaguars travel.

I figure the winner of NE@PIT will almost certainly get the #1 seed. KC is no longer playing as well as they did in September. I suppose there's some path whereby the Jags could win a tiebreaker with Pittsburgh if the Steelers beat the Pats, but that line of thought would likely require the Jags to win out, which itself seems very unlikely. The Jags still have games versus Seattle and @Tennessee to worry about. Also, their QB is Blake Bortles.

Not really scared of Seattle with that offensive line at 10am on the east coast (if it gets flexed...). Jags usually split with Titans lately, including last year when they were good). Wouldn't surprise me if the Pats run the table, but I also sorta expect the Steelers to lose Thursday (you also aren't taking future strength of schedule into account, obviously- Chiefs have the easiest in the league left, without any games against teams w winning records, easier than jags, who get Cle, Indy, SF, Ari, and Houston in their seven remaining)

Don't think international games are inherently a bum deal, but losing a home game (that they really need to win) against New England is lousy for the Raiders- could have been any of their home games that they forfeited, and they're losing hfa against probably their toughest opponent. Conversely, Pats get a season w only seven real road games, in a season with a close four-way race for hfa. At least the Raiders are lucky that 9-7 probably gets in (8-8 might even do it)

Was wondering how high the Saints would get after that incredible domination of the Bills.

It's amazing how many of this year's top teams are huge surprises. I went back and looked at the DVOA projections for the year, and three out of the current top six were at 20 or below. The Vikings, and then the Saints and Jags even lower at 26 and 28, respectively. The Rams were only at 14th, too. Saints have to be the biggest shock of all though. Their defense was supposed to be the worst in the league, instead it's 5th best.

The Saints are definitely a shock, but I think the Rams are even more surprising. It would be different if they were relying on playing great defense and running the ball with Gurley. But for their passing game to be as good as it has been is unfathomable to me. It's almost like if the Patriots were winning with Brady running the option!

Yes, if you'd told me preseason that the Saints' pass offense would be its third-best unit, I'd have assumed that Brees had begun to decline and it was a mistake to let their young WRs walk.

Not a bit of it.

There's just no precedent for the Saints improvement in pass defense, is there? Same head coach and coordinator, a massive turnover in personnel but no big-name free agents ... so many reasons to think they would be below average at best. Lattimore looks great, and Jordan is healthy, but there has to be more to it than that.

I picked the Vikings as my preseason NFC champion. I was not expecting pass offense to be its best unit. A Keenum-vs-Goff NFC championship game ought to force everyone involved in preseason forecasting to take early retirement.

There is more to the Saints defensive turnaround. Last year, his first complete one as d-coordinator, Dennis Allen hired Peter Giunta as Sr. Defensive assistant and Aaron Glenn as secondary coach. Giunta was the d-coord of the SB Rams and then secondary coach of the Chiefs and 2xSB Giants. They proceeded to coach a backfield that could not walk across the street without getting injured.

This year, the Saints got rid of long time Payton amigo and chief of rah-rah, Assistant Head Coach/Linebackers, Joe Vitt. Joe is now doing his routine with his son in law Adam Gase and has the Dolphins playing way over their heads (4-5). They also got rid of longtime D-line coach Bill Johnson who is now with the Rams (protected from scrutiny by Phillips and Glenn and Brockers?). Replaced Vitt with Mike Nolan and Johnson with Ryan Nielson (coming from D-line coach at NC State).

So, there has been a large coaching change.

On the player side, the backfield consists of Round1 and Round2 rookies, Round2 and UDFA second year players and fifth year S Vaccarro. That's a lot of draft capital back there and they were bad for the first two games (+74.9% and +66.9% Def Pass DVOA). 2nd year UDFA Ken Crawley was a healthy inactive ????? those two games and then replaced 2nd year UDFA De'vante Harris as RCB. Crawley should be the league MVP. Consider that since he stepped in, the Saints Def Pass DVOA has been:-91.7%,-50.4%,-61.6%,-61.4%,-13.7%,-40.6%,-16.1%.
The D line is not quite as young, but close. The linebackers (after Round3 rookie Anzalone was injured) are all free agents, only one was on the team last year (Craig Robertson).

The numbers last year did not show much improvement, but from my eye it was a better defense in 2016 than in 2015. The preseason defense looked to be much improved and the first two in season games were shockingly bad (against excellent QB play). I don't know how to do DVOA splits over say the first two games and last 7, but this defense has been the best in the league after week 2.

Head coaches really need to walk the tight rope between showing loyalty to subordinates, and ruthlessly replacing them when they are inadequate. Payton kind of reminds me of a mirror image of Dungy. Dungy, before getting paired with his old mentor, Tom Moore, and of course Manning, was really held back in Tampa by tolerating offensive assistants who weren't performing. I think Payton has had a similar experience with a lot of his defensive assistants.

Nice job on finding two heroes from the Jets-Buccaneers game. I would like to nominate as a hero anyone who sat through it in its entirety. If anyone sat through the entirety of Jets-Bucs AND Giants-49ers AND Pats-Broncos, then please get help. There's lots to do in New York, even when it's like 20º outside.

What are the odds now that Cleveland finishes 0-16? It plays its three weakest opponents on the road; the home games (GB, Balt, Jax) are all eminently loseable. It would be bizarre – yet oh so Browns – if Cleveland won no games while finishing ahead of, say, 6-10 Miami in DVOA.

A number to watch: the Detroit Lions have been stuffed on 31% of runs this year. Only three teams in FO's database for adjusted line yards (which goes back to 1996) have been stuffed on more than 27% of runs. They are the expansion Houston Texans of 2002 (30%), the 2005 Arizona Cardinals (31%: most productive rusher – Josh McCown) and of course another Lions team, this time the one that convinced Barry Sanders to retire (1998: 28%).

I should cut and paste your post so I can show it Lions fans who say Ameer Abdullah sucks. He's constantly having to make guys miss in the backfield.

The Lions have had some decent pass-blocking lines during Stafford's career (not this year), but I can't remember the last Detroit offensive line that was even halfway competent at run blocking. You might have to go back to the Kevin Jones (2004) era.

I cut and paste it for Smith and Payton fans. Sanders rushed for 1491 yards behind a line that was 29th in rush protection and 23rd in pass protection. He rushed for 0.75 yards/rush more than expected, per line performance.

I’m not advocating that they become a run-first team (that would be stupid). But being able to reliably convert 3rd and shorts would be nice, as would not losing yards on 50% of running plays. Asking Stafford to drop back 50 times a game behind this offensive line as currently constructed is just begging for him to get hurt. Also, the Packers and Saints have been pass-first teams for years, but they’ve been at their best when they have solid running games to complement it (the 2009, 2011, and this year’s Saints are good examples).

You'd think people would have picked up from watching the Patriots all these years, if from nothing else, how much value there is in being able to run efficiently,when the opponent sells out completely to stop the pass.

Exactly. The Lions had one of their best performances of the year against Pittsburgh, but lost the game because (as you pointed out) they couldn't take advantage of the Steelers dropping eight into coverage near the goal line.

I don't take much away from failing conversions to two top-5 rushing Ds. It's going to stink in any case so I'm not going to worry about it if they win games, especially if they beat the Bears on the road this week.

Hell, how many times have we seen Adrian Peterson fail to get a single yard? Haven't there been whole articles written about that?

Baltimore and GB are evenly matched. GB looks to have a minor opportunity in that Baltimore's run defense is not as strong as its pass defense. One can hope that MM remembers what worked in Chicago.

What is worrisome is that GB's special teams are nowhere to the level of Baltimore's units. This is a real deficiency. Zook cannot seem to generate a return game of any kind. Meanwhile, his groups commit penalties at every opportunity.

And, if Pittsburgh wears home uniforms (I forget how that is determined and too lazy to look it up) while New Orleans wears the white jerseys/black pants combination, it would be one of the best-looking Super Bowls of all time.

Poor Jacksonville doesn't merit a single entry in the Special Super Bowl Matchups feature, such is its unspecialness. Perhaps an Expansion '95 Rivalry Bowl? Or a Semi-Resident in London Bowl (vs the Rams)?

I was at that Detroit/Atlanta match and it was wild (if not particularly well played). Atlanta was 21-0 up at the half (where have I heard something similar before?), and Detroit eventually won on a last second field goal, which was missed on the first attempt, but had to be retaken because one of Detroit's own linemen false-started.

It was actually a delay of game penalty, which is kind of worse. The Lions basically iced themselves.

You’re right about the game not being well-played. Atlanta looked like they forgot how to play football in the second half. Matt Ryan had a terrible interception in the 3rd quarter, where he threw where nobody was within 20 yards except the intercepting defender. In fact, if the DB dropped the ball, Ryan would have been called for intentional grounding.

Would you say Rams/Patriots have the same color combination? Because the Patriots' silver is the metallic version of the Rams' white, just like the Saints' gold is the metallic version of the Steelers' YELLOW.

I probably should have done this one in the article because Pete Carroll's history with this is a bit nuts. The Patriots teams all crashed out hardcore after hot starts. The Seahawks teams have almost all started hot and then ended hotter to get to No. 1 in DVOA, except for both 2010 and 2016, when the team divebombed in the second half.

I get that it's based on 10 games played. My point was the Saints are at 0.96 EW per game played, which projects to 15.4 for the year. Looking back over the last several years, the closest I saw to that number was the 2007 Pats at 15.2.

"I'm not sure why this trend should exist over the last few years, when Buffalo has had multiple front office setups and multiple head coaches, but it does."

This seems pretty self explanatory to me - the Bills have had bad coaching for pretty much the entire time that Bill Belichick has been in the division - while the Patriots have not.

As the season goes on, teams get more information about each other - newly implemented schematic wrinkles, players improving/losing skills, etc. The Bills do a poorer job than average utilizing this information, while the Patriots do a much better job than average. The Patriots are fixing their holes, and exploiting other team's holes. The Bills are doing nothing.

Not a comment on Buffalo's staffs specifically but New England is one of the few that has been in place long enough to get a feel that we are seeing a trend, and not just making a trend out of noise. I wonder what the Steelers did under Cowher.

Reid's trend in Philly, compared to what it has been in K.C., gives me doubt as to whether this is a useful metric. I mean, it is possible that Reid became dramatically better at adjusting/modifying/coaching his team as the season progressed, after 12 years of head coaching, but I doubt it.

I think context is important in this as well. 11 out of his 14 years as Eagles coach they ended the year with a top-10 DVOA. (The 3 bad years being his first, last, and the famous TO pushups in the driveway year with McNabb hurt.) How big a problem is it to start out the year with a 25% DVOA and then drop to a 20% DVOA by the end of the year? (for example) It's not like he couldn't win in the playoffs either, he just couldn't string 3-4 wins in a row to get a Super Bowl win.

From 1999 to 2012, the Eagles had a lower DVOA at the end of the season compared to Week 6 in nine out of 14 seasons.

How much of that is from resting starters, though? The Eagles famously rested practically everyone in 2004 for multiple games, with the last two games being comically bad - McNabb came out for the second-to-last game for one drive, marched straight down the field and scored. And then he left the game (and several other starters didn't even play at all). That was all the scoring for Philly. 2001 and 2010 also had pointless final games where fans got treated to the Backup QB Show.

2004 was a big enough deal that FO's Super Bowl preview had to specially mark those games because they were such ridiculous outliers.

Looks like the Awful Eight has become the Terrible Ten. Tampa Bay last week and now Denver this week. No bigger single rank DVOA gap than between #22 Cincinnati and #23 Tampa Bay. And Denver now slides in behind Tampa Bay.

Interesting that Packers have now had an offense led by Brett Hundley for about 40% of their season, and they still rank 9th... The much-maligned Capers-led defense is not good, of course, but 18th is not 28th or 30th, which is probably where most Packer fans would think it belongs... This is a long way of saying that wins over BALT, TB at Lambeau and at CLEV in the next four weeks would leave them 8-5 with a trio of tougher games (at CAR and DET, home to MINN) remaining but some prospect of a different QB for at least two of them... If Seattle or Atlanta stumble, and the Packers win that Carolina game, as well as these others-- big ifs, of course-- they would be poised for a playoff run and at that point one assumes Rodgers plays for sure... A longshot to be sure, but so was winning 8 straight and getting to NFC title game last year...

The Packers defense ranks in the bottom five for yards/drive, points/drive, drive success rate, and red zone performance. It has been terrible at forcing punts and getting off the field on third down. It seems to be surviving on stripsacks and botched snaps, which is an unlikely formula for long-term success. I'm amazed it ranks as high as 18th in DVOA.

I never quite understand the point of these 'If [very best case scenario] happens, then my team could win [arbitrary number of] games leading to [unlikely outcome]' posts, unless they come with a dash of Raiderjoe wit. I guess they'd be more tolerable if there were a similar number of equally obvious posts saying 'If our superstar QB gets hurt and few if any of our rookies and sophomores develop as we need them to, then we'll be unwatchable garbage'.

Surprised there is no article on the Tyrod Taylor benching. I always thought he was basically a poor man's Russel Wilson. Not as talented as Wilson, so needing more of a tailor made offense, but still an effective NFL QB.